Tonight, a robotic spacecraft built by a Houston company will try to land safely on the moon. The lunar lander, named Odysseus, is scheduled to touch down at 6:24 p.m. Eastern time.
If all goes to plan, the mission would achieve a series of distinctions: It would be the first American-built mission to the moon’s surface since 1972, the closest landing to the moon’s south pole in history and the first privately built spacecraft from any country to make it to the moon’s surface without crashing.
Watch the landing live, with coverage from our reporters.
Odysseus is a hexagonal cylinder about 14 feet tall and five feet wide. The spacecraft launched on Feb. 15 from Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and entered orbit around the moon yesterday. NASA did not build the craft or manage its flight, but the space agency did pay Odysseus’s manufacturer, Intuitive Machines, $118 million to carry a set of scientific instruments that may aid future NASA astronaut missions. The lander is also carrying 125 miniature moon sculptures made by the artist Jeff Koons.
Odysseus will try to land in a region where water ice has been detected. That ice could be used by astronauts who visit the moon in the future for drinking water, oxygen and to even fuel spacecraft.
U.S. examined allies of Mexico’s president for cartel ties
American law enforcement officials spent years looking into allegations that allies of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, met with drug cartels and took millions of dollars from them after he took office, according to U.S. records and people familiar with the matter.
The inquiry uncovered potential links between top Mexican advisers and powerful cartel operatives, but the U.S. never opened a formal investigation into López Obrador himself. Ultimately, the officials shelved the inquiry after concluding that they had little appetite to pursue allegations against the leader of one of America’s top allies.
López Obrador called the allegations “completely false.” He said the news of the inquiry would not “in any way” affect Mexico’s relationship with the U.S., but he said he expected a response from the U.S. government.
A.I. buzz fueled Nvidia’s surging valuation
The stock market had its best day in more than a year as investors raced to buy shares of the chipmaker Nvidia. The company had reported record profits fueled by its dominance in making the tools that power artificial intelligence. By market close today, Nvidia shares were up more than 16 percent, adding $276 billion to its valuation and making it the third-largest U.S.-listed company.
Many investors still consider Nvidia undervalued because they expect it to keep generating cash as A.I. capabilities grow. But others are more cautious because of the company’s enormous “price-to-sales” ratio, a measure of a company’s value relative to how much cash it generates.
Beyond the market enthusiasm, some economists expect A.I. to power once-in-a-generation productivity gains.
Disasters displaced millions in the U.S. in 2023
Across the U.S., an estimated 2.5 million people were forced from their homes last year by weather-related disasters, according to new data from the Census Bureau. More than a third of those people said they had been displaced for longer than a month, and more than half reported that they had interacted with someone who seemed to be trying to defraud them.
The survey data offer the most complete picture yet of the toll on humans related to the worsening effects of extreme weather.
Jennifer Lopez’s comeback album … with a twist
For the first time in nearly a decade, Jennifer Lopez released a new album. Our critic Wesley Morris described the tracks on the project — “This Is Me … Now” — as a so-so buffet of sounds, and was much more interested in its accompanying movie, which Lopez co-wrote and is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
In the 65-minute film, Lopez stars as her fictional self: a husband-hunter jailed in metaphorical music-video situations like “glass house” and “love factory.”
“Here’s an entertainer determined to enter-freaking-tain,” Wesley wrote. However, “Lopez has been never on any sort of cutting edge. She’s often where music just was; and that can leave her stranded the way she is here.”
How to eat like a nutrition expert
It might surprise you to hear that Maya Vadiveloo, a dietitian and professor of nutrition, is a self-described “connoisseur” of soft pretzels dipped in gooey melted cheese. “It’s not a balanced meal,” she said, but not every single meal has to be especially healthy.
Rather than seeking perfection, Vadiveloo uses a handful of healthy habits to put together a balanced meal plan. We asked her for tips, which include focusing on the perimeter of the grocery store and making veggies your “lazy” snack.
